Robert Robb: The Arizona corporation commissioner wants to dictate the state's energy mix until 2050. And if he's wrong? Guess who pays. (Hint: That would be you.)

Would you give Andy Tobin a large hunk of money and ask him to invest it in energy futures for you?

Tobin apparently believes that, when you elected him to the Arizona Corporation Commission, that’s what you did.

Tobin wants his fellow politicians on the commission to dictate the energy mix of regulated electric utilities as far into the future as 2050. By that date, they would have to produce 80 percent of their power from “clean” sources such as solar, wind and nuclear. Each year, they would have to submit reports documenting their progress toward that result.

Utilities would be forced to fix forests

But that’s only the beginning of Tobin’s mandatory prescriptions for the future. In addition to producing electricity, regulated utilities must restore the health of Arizona’s forests. They would be ordered to do that by getting into the biomass electricity generation business big time. From Dec. 31, 2021, to Dec. 31, 2041, to be precise. This supposedly will produce the demand for the forest thinning that will reduce the severity of wildfires.

Never mind that there is a fierce debate within environmental circles as to whether biomass is a clean or dirty fuel source.

But, wait, there is even more to the Tobin utopia. Our regulated utilities are to be the gas stations of the future. More precisely, the recharging stations for electric vehicles. The commission would order regulated utilities to build such stations in housing developments, office and industrial complexes and “on major highways and interstates across their service areas.”

Ratepayers, not utilities, are at risk

Now, if Tobin’s big bet on energy futures turns out to be a loser, the cost will be borne by captive ratepayers of the regulated utilities that have to dance to whatever tune the politicians on the commission decide to play. The regulated utilities themselves have a constitutionally guaranteed profit on whatever investments the commission orders them to undertake.

Let’s assume that solar is the energy source of the future for Arizona, which I think is a reasonable assumption – although I’m not asking you to back my hunch with your money.

Even if true, there is still huge uncertainty about the extent solar power will be provided from large-scale plants controlled by the utilities regulated by the commission, versus coming from rooftop systems owned by individual residents and businesses.

Tobin’s plan is heavily skewed toward utility-scale solar, including a mandate that utilities invest heavily in battery storage, to make their solar power more available on the grid during peak demand hours.

He says he worries about the stranded cost of fossil-fuel generation if clean sources take off. But there is also a risk of stranded utility-scale solar costs if rooftop systems, so-called distributed power, end up being the preferred option when we actually get to the future, rather than speculating about it.

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This is not the commission's job

Dictating energy mixes, much less ordering regulated utilities to get into the forest health and fueling station businesses, is far afield from the role of the commission contemplated in the Arizona Constitution.

Regulated utilities are supposed to make their own business decisions. Commissioners are supposed to review those decisions to see if they were reasonable and prudent before sticking captive ratepayers with the bill.

Commissioners departed from that role with the existing requirement that regulated utilities get 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025, which doesn’t include nuclear.

And now, a new political outfit, calling itself Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona, says it will qualify a constitutional amendment for this November’s ballot that will increase that requirement to 50 percent by 2030.

So, instead of our energy mix being decided by five politicians on the commission, it would be decided by 1.7 million voters. All of whom, of course, will be completely up to speed on the energy-efficiency of solar panels, the capacity and cost of battery storage, the effect of intermittent power on the grid, and the relative price of all fuels – natural gas, solar, wind, coal and nuclear – 12 years from now.

As well as clairvoyant about whatever technological breakthroughs might occur over the next decade to reduce emissions from fossil fuels.

The Arizona Corporation Commission is supposed to protect captive ratepayers from getting exploited by monopoly providers. How about putting the crystal ball aside and doing that well?